Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober (13 page)

He hurried off to make the call over his car radio. Meanwhile, the crusty old man and his less-crusty wife had been standing in the doorway, listening wide-eyed to the whole conversation. Both were redfaced as they realized they had almost turned away two famous inventors.

"Hope ye’ll excuse my poor manners," the farmer said. "I was in TV, y’ know."

After a few phone calls and a long and bumpy trip to the Trenton airport, Tom and his father were relieved to find themselves airborne again in the jetrocopter and headed north.

When they finally pulled up the driveway at home in Shopton, two teary-eyed figures awaited them. "Oh, Tom, Damon, I’m so glad you’re back safe again," Mrs. Swift murmured. "Not that I was really worried, but still― "

"I know," Tom said affectionately, realizing the effort it cost his mother not to show her fears whenever her husband and son were exposed to danger. "It was pretty rough on you and Sandy. But Dad and I always manage to bounce out of a tight spot, somehow."

Sandy sniffled. "Each time it happens I think how mean and sarcastic I am to you, Tom. And I want so much to have you back so I can keep doing it."

"I know, sis."

He told her briefly how they had been kidnapped by the Women With Issues and kept imprisoned at the igloo laboratory, his mother listening. But he made no mention of the threats against them.
No sense their worrying over the past
, Tom told himself.
There’s always the future!
He knew his father agreed.

To celebrate her husband and son’s safe return, Mrs. Swift had prepared some of their favorite dishes, including steak pie and a delicious chocolate cake. "What a terrific meal!" Tom smiled at his mother. "I’ll bet I ate too much to sleep tonight!"

Mr. Swift chuckled and laid down his napkin. "No danger, son, if you’re as tired as I am."

Tom was. By nine-thirty that evening he was in bed, deep in slumber. By the next morning he was greatly refreshed.

He was in a determined mood when he joined the family at the breakfast table. "I’ve had enough of Li Ching and his employees!" he stated.

"As have we all," declared Mr. Swift.

A fierce frown settled on Tom’s face. "And as soon as I get to Enterprises, I’m going to start doing something about it!"

AT SWIFT Enterprises, after the usual mutual briefing with Harlan Ames, Tom sat down with Arvid Hanson to discuss turning his drone-tracker concept into hard reality. "This is in your neck of the woods, Arv. I’m looking for a lot of miniaturization—and a fast turnout."

"I’m your man, chief," Arv stated. "Lay it on!"

"We’ll be tracking the ‘shadow’ of the control signal. What I have in my mind is not only a basic detector but a sort of edge-enhancer."

"You want to isolate the amplitude gradients, in other words."

"And the frequency distortions around the absorption point—the Eyeballer’s special receiving antenna." Passing the expert model-maker a sheaf of ideas, drawings, and calculations, Tom explained that the Eyeballer would not only be very small and probably fairly distant in the sky, but would also be traveling across the detection "window" at supersonic speeds. "We’ll have a fraction of a second to pick up whatever info we can squeeze out of her." The goal, Tom noted, was to plot the flight paths of the drone from several locations—as many as possible.

Arv nodded. "I see. You’ll be triangulating on a likely home base for the critter."

"Yup. I know I’m making a pile of assumptions, any one of which could be wrong. Still, one way or another, we’re likely to learn something. More data is better than less."

"It sure is, Tom." Hanson promised to begin conferring with Hank Sterling and the rest of the main engineering team. "Look for a prototype by this time tomorrow." The engineer rose and added: "Let’s hope that when the Feds get this data, they’ll have enough to take action."

Tom nodded but looked away in silence. Arv Hanson paused at the door. What did the silence mean?

Suddenly he knew. "Tom, listen to me," Arv said earnestly, sitting down again. "Think about your family, your employees here, your friends—think about Bud! Don’t take on the guy yourself. Leave the fight to the pros."

"I’ve heard it all before, Arv," Tom replied. "I’ve memorized it. Most of the time I’ve given in and followed it. Not this time."

"Why, Skipper?"

"Why? Not for the congressman, or Asa Pike. Not even for ‘world peace’ or big things like that. I have to go after the drone because I have a personal stake in it. I
need
to do it."

"Do you mean—because of what happened in Paris?"

"Because of me, a man is dead," declared the young inventor emotionally. "Even if
I
was a victim too, even if I couldn’t have prevented it, it’s a burden I’m going to have to live with. You talk about family, friends, employees. Don’t you think Galaspain had them too?"

"Revenge against Li Ching won’t― "

"
It’s not revenge!
" Tom exclaimed sharply. "I’m not going in with a gun. I’m going to take out his
plot
, not his life."

Arv’s smile was sad but resigned. "Okay. I’m with you, Tom. Now Bud—Bud may have a few thoughts to share on the matter."

"Oh yes," Tom said quietly.

As Hanson worked with the others on his "Shadower" tracking system, Tom plunged back to work on the final stage of the megascope space prober, eagerly and restlessly. He was still determined to have the invention fully operational in time to observe the liftoff of the
Highroad
mission.

The entire mechanism stood nearly complete in the observatory. Here the huge wirework antenna had already been swivel-mounted on a towering pedestal. Tom surveyed the antenna’s strange form with a critical eye. It consisted of a series of thick rings, resembling giant innertubes, stacked in cylindrical formation. Each ring was girdled by a gleaming white-gold band of Neo-Aurium metal, mined from the floor of the ocean. Each of the antenna rings was about five feet across, and the entire antenna assembly was forty feet long. This was the critical component that would propel the matrix of "counterparticles" across space at nearly the speed of light to establish the invisible "lens" for the megascope.

Close to the base of the pedestal was a neat console, ten feet wide, slightly curving, waist high. The front of it was studded with dials, control knobs, and the receiver viewing screen, a broad circular monitor.

Tom had already tested out the basic elements of the invention in his laboratory, but he had not yet deployed his quantum sensor-node at full scale. "So far, so good," the inventor murmured after completing the hookup and running a final check on the liquid helium feed. "Let’s see how she works."

He aimed the antenna and adjusted the controls for a view of the grounds below, setting the position of the sensor-node—which could be manipulated independently of the antenna to some extent—to a height of four thousand feet above Swift Enterprises. A remarkably clear picture of the experimental station appeared on the screen! Tom cheered under his breath.

Next, Tom scanned the highway outside the plant. Dropping the viewing point closer to the ground, he amused himself by gliding along over various cars traveling to and from Shopton.
Who needs the Eyeballer?
he chuckled.
I’ve got the Mighty Eye!

The youth paused the quantum lens a quarter of a mile from the main gate, where a dirt horse-trail joined the road and ran along next to it. Two female equestrians were ambling along behind a third rider, and one of the females seemed to be bouncing about on her saddle. "Must be new at it," Tom murmured. "She’s going to be mighty sore."

Curious, he zoomed in closer by moving the sensor-node—and burst into laughter.
Sandy and Bashalli!

Sandy was an expert rider, as was Tom. Bashalli Prandit was—something else. He recalled that she had mentioned several times wanting riding lessons, and now she was getting them. "From Chow Winkler, no less!" chortled Tom as he viewed the lead rider from head-level. The big cowpoke had a wry expression on his face that the shadow of his ten-galloner barely concealed. Clearly the lesson wasn’t going as smoothly as Chow had hoped.

Tom realized instantly that a surprise was afoot. No doubt the young Pakistani would suddenly appear out of nowhere to join Tom and his sister on their next ride.
I won’t say anything
, he thought.
Don’t want to spoil it for them.

He continued watching with idle curiosity as the three clomped past the main gate and continued on, a direction that eventually would take them to the Swifts’ front porch. Then Tom frowned, and his frowned deepened into concern. A car, approaching on the road behind them, had suddenly accelerated.
A cream-colored sedan!

"Good grief!" Tom exclaimed helplessly. "It could be the Women With Issues!"

For an instant Tom stared unbelievingly at the screen of the megascope as the speeding sedan swerved around the riders, passing dangerously close and causing the horses to rear back. It lunged onto the dirt path, blocking the three!

Desperately, Tom tried to think of a way to prevent what looked like another ambush—possibly a kidnap attempt! He dashed to the wall and pressed an alarm button while his eyes raked the observatory room. "They’re too far away for my repelatron trick. But I must do something—and fast!" Tom thought.

He glanced back at the monitor screen and realized that something
was
being done!

A female figure—Tom recognized her immediately as Big Bertha Pellasen—had slid from the sedan’s driver side. In her hand was a bulky camera-like object, evidently Li Ching’s freeze-gun. Before she could even raise and aim it, she fell back in fear as Chow charged her like a knight of the open range! Tom could almost hear the cowboy whooping as he made his steed dance about the car, coming threateningly close to Pellasen and rearing up like a rodeo performer.

The woman backed up against the fender, then abruptly broke off the confrontation by darting back into the sedan. As Chow rode off in triumph after Sandy and Bashalli, who had quickly turned back and were trotting toward the safety of the guard booth at the Enterprises gate, the sedan kicked up a swath of dirt and dust and roared off in the opposite direction.

She’ll pass the house!
Tom suddenly realized. What if she—?

But no! Before his startled eyes, Tom saw the car suddenly begin to shimmy and swerve wildly. In a second it had left the road and plunged into the underbrush, sideswiping a tree and finally grinding into another.

The car door opened and Miss Pellasen, now very much a Woman With Issues, scurried into the wooded area. Tom tried to follow with the megascope beam, but found that the sap-rich trees and other obstructions were disrupting the microwave "conveyor belt," preventing the sensor-node from stabilizing.

"All I can do now is alert the police. But gosh, what a break having Chow there to protect the girls!" Tom muttered. "And maybe we can dredge some information from that wrecked car."

After making his calls, Tom took a ridewalk to the gate guard’s station, where the riders had hitched their steeds.

"I see more and more what you go through, you Swifts," said Bash with a quaver.

"It was scary all right," Sandy noted in a small voice. "Something like this happened before, Bashi, but I thought we’d be safe if we rode as a group."

Tom clapped a hand on Chow’s back. "I’d say you
were
pretty safe, with our Texan along! That was some mighty fine horsin’, pardner!"

The westerner beamed. "Aw now, weren’t so much o’ nothin’. But say now― " he suddenly added. "Tom Swift, how’d you know ’bout all this? We ’as off down the road and on the other side o’ that wall!"

"Big brothers have their ways," said Sandy. "And I’m so glad
this
one keeps his eye on me!" She hugged him warmly, and so did Bashalli. Chow got the same treatment.

Julia Pellasen’s trail petered out, and there was no sign of her. "She must have contacted a confederate—another sister, I’d imagine—who picked her up on the fly," stated Harlan Ames later in the day. "Captain Rock and Chief Slater agreed to allow the sedan to be towed into the plant after they completed their investigation. Shall we take a look at it, boss?"

The cream-colored sedan sat in the executive parking lot near the administration tower. It was a mass of dents and scrapes, with a crumpled nose. "Unfortunately, she must have taken the ray device with her," Ames noted.

"She would have been foolish not to," muttered Tom. "What I’m interested in right now is this: what made the car go haywire like it did?"

Ames smiled. "Of course, she
might
have just been so panicked by our avenging horseman that she lost control. But you don’t believe that, and neither do I."

Tom was examining the hood, looking for something very specific. "Too much crumpling," he said to himself. "So let’s look at the engine."

The hood swung up with a creak. Tom scrutinized the engine with expert eyes, then stood up again, giving Harlan Ames a grim look. "As I thought."

"Freeze effects?"

"Definitely. And it wasn’t just some accident caused by the unit Big Bertha was carrying. It’s easy to see that the engine was raked by a beam coming from above."

Ames nodded. "And so, on top of these dents we have a new
wrinkle
. Someone, for some reason, is now using the Eyeballer to attack Li Ching’s employees. And
that
means the drone is back in operation
here—in Shopton—at Enterprises!
"

"I’D SAY this nice little contraption of yours is tickin’ like a watch, young fella," said Asa Pike over the Private Ear Radio Tom had shipped to him. "That is t’say, both this box in my hand and that Shadower you folks knit up."

Several days had passed since the incident with Julia Pellasen. Tom’s detector-tracker had been perfected, and several dozen of the compact units had been turned out. Carefully camouflaged, they were now hidden near various crucial defense-related facilities throughout the country.